Ikea Coffee Table Trash to Treasure

As Big and I prepare for our big move, we quickly realized that while we both have complete bedroom sets, we’ve always lived with roommates who’ve furnished the common areas such as the living room and kitchen. We started scouring through Craigslist for free or steeply discounted furniture and browsing through various Pinterest posts for DIY furniture tutorials and IKEA hacks!

One man’s trash…

I pinned this particular IKEA coffee table hack by Brynne at PaintTheWorldWhite.com not only because I loved the rustic look but also because her tutorial was super straightforward! A few days after showing Big, he came across an IKEA Lack coffee table by his building’s trash area, and his dad called to let us know he had picked up some beautiful planks of wood from a neighbor re-doing their deck – the DIY stars had aligned.

Long story short, we painted our FREE black coffee table white instead of purchasing it new, saving us $45 + tax + transportation costs + time for a trek out to IKEA. Yay!

While I painted, Big removed any unwanted nails, filled the holes with wood filler, then sanded the discarded deck planks nice and smooth. He then stained one side of the wood planks with 2 coats of Minwax stain and trimmed excess wood with his dad’s Ryobi hand saw once fully dried (we wanted 2″ of overhang on each end).

Taking a break from painting to enjoy the view <3Minwax Wood Finish Stain in Ipswich PineIf you don’t have access to a saw, your neighborhood Home Depot or Lowes can trim wood for youSaved $6.70 with our 70% off coupon!

We simplified the process even further by purchasing one paint color for the wood planks vs the three listed in Brynne’s tutorial. Big suggested we check out paint colors at Michael’s since they often have great coupons, either through the store or through RetailMeNot.com. He found a 70% off coupon, so we ended up paying only $2.70 for our $8.99 jar of Americana Decor chalky finish paint. We wanted the beautiful wood grain to show through, so we watered the paint down by 3 parts paint to 1 part water. After the first coat dried, we finely sanded the surface to create a “weathered” appearance.

Saved $3 by using leftover wood filler!Drilling pilot holes for our wood screwsLetting the wood glue dry between the wood planks and top of the IKEA tableSpraying on polyurethane to protect the surface from wear and tearFinal Product!

We were able to keep our costs down by finding the Ikea table, Wood planks, and having paint, stain, and polyurethane leftovers from our family.

Lil’s takeaways:

I appreciate Big’s work ethic (he would always be the first to suggest working on our coffee table each morning) and ability to see the big financial picture (he is the coupon king).

Foam rollers are WAY better than paint brushes when it comes to painting laminate surfaces – the brushstrokes were painfully visible on the IKEA table and looked super unprofessional.

Big’s takeaways:

Always keep a look out for what people are throwing out; with some imagination and hard work, you can make it great again.

90% of the battle is just showing up! Once Lil and I got going on this project, it seemed like it was done in no time. Now we are addicted to DIY – it is so rewarding and good on our wallets.

Always use a tarp or cover to protect the surfaces your painting on. We had some drips of white paint on the deck. We later found out the dollar store sells big plastic tarps, as well as nice sets of foam brushes.

We hope you found our inaugural DIY furniture post helpful and interesting! Feel free to drop us a comment below and follow us on Instagram to see how our coffee table fits into our new apartment 🙂

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Meet Big & Lil

Hello and welcome!
We are Big and Lil, an accountant and a physician assistant, respectively. Together, we've paid off $100k in student loans in less than 2 years while living in NYC and want to empower others with our budgeting and frugal lifestyle tips.
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